This week, students in our After School Programs will be learning all about elephants, rhinos, and hippos.

Elephants, rhinos, and hippos are all examples of megafauna. Megafauna are species of animals with large bodies, long lives, and low death rates. They produce few offspring (which require care until they mature), and adult megafauna have few natural predators. Some scientists attribute a minimum weight to megafauna (anywhere from 40 kg-250 kg, 88-551 lb). Elephants and rhinos are examples of terrestrial megafauna. Terrestrial animals live predominantly or entirely on land. Hippos are semi-aquatic, which means that they are primarily terrestrial but do spend much of their time in water.

For further reading, check out:
Little Elephant - Miela Ford and Tana Hoban
Elephants – Steve Bloom

Photo credit: wikipedia

This week, students in our After School Programs will be learning about mollusks.

The word “Mollusk” comes from Latin meaning “soft.” Mollusks are characterized by being inverts, with a soft unsegmented body, and many have a hard shell secreted by the mantle. The mantle is the dorsal body wall which covers the visceral mass, or internal organs. Mollusks have a muscular foot, which is generally used for locomotion. Mollusks live all over the world. Currently scientists have classified over 160,000 species. They are found from the deepest ocean trenches, to the intertidal zone, to freshwater streams, and even on land. Some are over 100 feet long (like the giant squid) while others are so small they can barely be seen. This week we will focus on four main classes in the phylum molluska: cephlapoda, gastropoda, bivalvia, and polyplacophora.

Cephlapoda – squid, octopus, nautilus, cuttlefish
Gastopoda – snails, slugs, limpets, abalone, conch, and nudibranch
Bivalvia – scallops, clams, oysters, and mussels
Polyplacophora -chiton

For further reading, check out:
A Slug’s Life – John Himmelman
About Mollusks – Cathryn Sill

This week, students in our After School Programs will learn all about bears. Students will investigate mammalian characteristics, find out what bears eat, and learn what bears need in their habitats to survive. Students will also learn about the effect that humans have on bear populations.

Bears are in phylum Chordata, class Mammalia, order Carnivora, and family Ursidae. Bears live throughout the world and are found in many different habitats from the tropics to the arctic. Brown bears, black bears, and polar bears are all found in North America. Common characteristics of bears include: a large body, stocky legs, plantigrade paws (bears walk flat on the soles of their feet), a long snout, shaggy hair, paws with five nonretractable claws, and a short tail. Bears also have an excellent sense of smell. Most bears sleep in dens during the winter for a long sleep (similar to hibernation). During the denning period the bear’s body temperature lowers, the metabolic rate decreases, and they can be easily aroused.

For further reading, check out:
Fraser Bear: A Cub’s Life – Maggie De Vries
Two Bear Cubs: A Miwok Legend from California’s Yosemite Valley – Robert D. San Souci

Photo credit: wikipedia

This week students in our After School Programs will learn all about birds. They will learn about basic bird characteristics, special bird adaptations, the importance of migratory bird habitats, and why we should help protect them.

Birds are in the class Aves and have certain characteristics that set them apart from other animals. Birds are in the class Aves. They are vertebrates (have a backbone), endothermic (warm blooded), bipedal (can walk/hop on two legs), and lay hard shelled eggs. Birds are very diverse, living all over the world in fact there are more than 10,000 species of birds alive today. Some birds are tiny, like the Bee Humming birds (only about 5 cm or 2 in), while others are enormous, like the ostrich (reaching 2.7 m or 9 ft). According to fossil record birds evolved from dinosaurs in the Jurassic period, 150-200 million years ago.

Every Thursday on our blog we focus on a new Bay Area native plants, animal, or bird. Here are some of the native birds we have talked about:
American Robin
Mallad
Anna’s Hummingbird
American Coot
Common Raven
Scrub Jay
California Quail

For further reading, check out:
Chickens Aren’t the Only Ones – Ruth Heller
Birds of San Francisco and the Bay Area – Joseph Morlan, Chris Fisher, Gary Ross, Ewa Plucienni

This week, students in our After School Programs are learning all about bugs and butterflies. Students will investigate the basic characteristics of insects and the process of metamorphosis, discover the role insects play in their ecosystem and their importance to humans and will leave inspired to protect insects and their habitats.

Insects belong to the phylum Arthropoda and the Class Insecta. Arthropod means “joint foot” and all insects have jointed legs. (However not all Arthropods are insects. Crabs, lobsters, and barnacles are also arthropods.) Some examples of familiar insects include: butterflies, moths, mosquitoes, beetles, ants, bees, wasps, and crickets. Insects are the most diverse group of animals on earth with more than a million species. More than half of all known living organisms are insects. All insects are invertebrates; they lack a backbone.

What makes in insect an insect? Insects have: 6 jointed legs, three parts to their body (a head, abdomen, and thorax), compound eyes, antennae, an exoskeleton, and most insects have wings. Thus, spiders, who have 8 legs, are not insects, neither are worms, scorpions, millipedes, centipedes, snails, slugs, or beach fleas!

The above image is a Bay Checkerspot Butterfly and is native to the State of California.

For further reading, check out:
Insect – Laurence Mound
The Best Book of Bugs - Claire Llewellyn
The Beautiful Butterfly Book – Sue Unstead
A Ladybug’s Life – John Himmelman

Photo credit: wikipedia

This week, students in our After School Programs, will be learning about cats and dogs. Students will learn about domestic dogs and cats and compare them to their family members in the wild. Students will also explore the relationship between predators and prey.

Cats
All cats, from domestic house cats to lions and tigers, belong to the family Felidae. They are often referred to as Felids. There are 40 known species of felids in the world today. Felids are vertebrates, meaning that they have a backbone. Unlike our reptile and amphibian friends, cats are mammals. They are also carnivores, or meat eaters, and have large canine teeth. Cats are found on every continent except Australia and Antarctia. All members of the family Felidae are able to purr and have retractable or semi-retractable claws. (Retracting claws helps to keep them sharp.) Domestic cats have been living amongst humans for around 10,000 years, but there have been cats on earth for 25 million years.

Dogs
The domestic dog is a member of the family Canidae, a diverse group of carnivores which contains 36 extant, or currently existing, species. Caninds are found on every continent, except Antarctica and live in many different habitats including: deserts, mountains, forests, and grasslands. The smallest is the Fennec Fox (which is 24 cm or 9.4 in long) and the largest is the Gray Wolf (which can grow up to 200 cm or 6.56 ft and weigh 80 kg or 176 lb). Canines generally have long legs, lithe bodies, and are adapted to chase prey. Canines walk on their toes (are digitigrades), have non-retractile claws (unlike cats), and bushy tails. Many canines live and hunt in pacts, have complex social lives, and are very adaptable. Canids include: wolves, jackals, foxes, coyotes, the bush dog, the African wild dog, the Dhole, and the racoon dog.

For further reading, check out:
The First Dog – Jan Brett
Mammal – Steve Parker

This week, students in our after school programs will learn all about lizards and snakes. Lizards and snakes are members of the Squamata order of the Reptilian class. (Remember King Phyllip Came Over For Great Steaks which can help you remember Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species according to the scientific or biological classification system). Repto, in Latin, means to creep. Reptiles breath air, are cold-blooded, and are covered in scales. Squamata is the largest order of reptiles. Members of this order shed their skin, have horny scales or shields, and quadrate bones in their skull (helping them to seize and manipulate their prey). Snakes and lizards are both members of this order.

This week we will make tube snakes out of paper towel rolls, play a game called “Tail Tag”, make chameleon tongues, do a skin shedding demo, and create an art project called “Godzilla: The Super Lizard.”

For further reading, check out:
Reptile (DK Eyewitness Books) – Colin McCarthy
See Through Reptiles – Steve Parker
Lizards, Frogs, and Polliwogs – Douglas Florian

This week in our after school programs, students will be learning all about the Class Amphibia. They will learn why frogs are considered the bio-indicators of a healthy habitat, reasons for the amphibian decline, and we will introduce the concept of one’s own ecological footprint.

Frogs have been the hardest hit in terms of global amphibian decline. Even in pristine areas, such as protected parks, frogs have declined in numbers. Reasons for the decline may include:

• Habitat Loss
• Invasive Species
• Pollution
• Population
• Overharvesting

An easy way to remember this is HIPPO!

For further reading, check out:
Amphibian – Barry Clarke
A Wood Frog’s Life – John Himmelman

Students receiving our school programming this fall will become “Wild Animal Explorers.” Here is our class description:

Join Tree Frog Treks for our Animal Explorer program! We will learn about the five classes of vertebrates (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) by meeting live animals, studying skins, skulls, and specimens, and exploring the natural world. Hold frogs and do the frog walk! Find out about the secret lives of your own pets! Touch a Red-tailed hawk wing and talons, learn bird calls, and use binoculars and a spotting scope to see our feathered friends up close! Find out which bears used to live in San Francisco, and how they can sleep all winter without eating! Develop your powers of observation, make fun take-home art projects, and come face-to-face with frogs, salamanders, lizards, snakes and our whole cast of creepy, crawly co-workers!

It’s not to late to have us come to your school, click here for more information about our After School Programs.

This is the last week of classes for our Fall term for most of our schools. We made some new connections and met some really creative and amazing kids. Our teachers were great this semester and came up with some really original ideas to add to our curriculum. One of our lead teachers, Mara, ended her class last week by having the children complete their special nature journals. In these books, the kids wrote down observations of the natural world: animals they saw, plants they learned about, things they might notice in the snowy weather (for the folks who went skiing), and when the trees in San Francisco started to grow new leaves. The idea behind this was that the kids could “take what they know, everywhere they go.” They closed the hour, journals in hand, with the famous Pinky Promise; which is to be nice to our friends, and the animals. With pinkies held around the circle, they recited Tree Frog Treks “Bill of Rights” and received mini diplomas.

We are looking forward to our Winter term which starts the first week of January. Our curriculum for this term will be Lab Science Explorer! See you then!!